The Plantronics Colorplus is a

graphics card A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or mistakenly GPU) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display device, such as a computer mo ...

for

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...

computers, first sold in 1982. It is a superset of the then-current CGA standard, using the same monitor standard and providing the same pixel resolutions. It was produced by Frederick Electronics, of

Frederick, Maryland Frederick is a city in and the county seat of Frederick County, Maryland. It is part of the Baltimore–Washington Metropolitan Area. Frederick has long been an important crossroads, located at the intersection of a major north–south Native ...

. The ''Colorplus'' has twice the memory of a standard CGA board (32k, compared to 16k). The additional memory can be used in graphics modes to double the

color depth Color depth or colour depth (see spelling differences), also known as bit depth, is either the number of bits used to indicate the color of a single pixel, or the number of bits used for each color component of a single pixel. When referring ...

, giving two additional graphics modes—16 colors at 320×200 resolution, or 4 colors at 640×200 resolution. It uses the same Motorola MC6845 display controller as the previous MDA and CGA adapters. The original card also includes a

parallel printer port In computing, a parallel port is a type of interface found on early computers ( personal and otherwise) for connecting peripherals. The name refers to the way the data is sent; parallel ports send multiple bits of data at once (paralle ...

Output capabilities

CGA compatible modes: *160×100 16 color mode *320×200 in 4 colors from a 16 color hardware palette. Pixel aspect ratio of 1:1.2. *640×200 in 2 colors. Pixel aspect ratio of 1:2.4 *40×25 with 8×8 pixel font text mode (effective resolution of 320×200) *80×25 with 8×8 pixel font text mode (effective resolution of 640×200) In addition to the CGA modes, it offers: *320×200 with 16 colors *640×200 with 4 colors *"New high-resolution" text font, selectable by hardware

jumper Jumper or Jumpers may refer to: Clothing *Jumper (sweater), a long-sleeve article of clothing; also called a top, pullover, or sweater **A waist-length top garment of dense wool, part of the Royal Navy uniform and the Uniforms of the United State ...

The "new" font was actually the unused "thin" font already present in the IBM CGA ROMs, with 1-pixel wide vertical strokes. This offered greater clarity on RGB monitors, versus the default "thick" / 2-pixel font more suitable for output to composite monitors and over RF to televisions but, contrary to Plantronics' advertising claims, was drawn at the same 8x8 pixel resolution.

Software support

Few programs made use of these modes, for which there was no

BIOS In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the b ...

support. A 1984 advertisement listed the following software as compatible: * Color-It *

UCSD P-system UCSD Pascal is a Pascal programming language system that runs on the UCSD p-System, a portable, highly machine-independent operating system. UCSD Pascal was first released in 1977. It was developed at the University of California, San Diego (U ...

* Peachtree Graphics Language * Business Graphics System *

Graph Power In graph theory, a branch of mathematics, the th power of an undirected graph is another graph that has the same set of vertices, but in which two vertices are adjacent when their distance in is at most . Powers of graphs are referred to ...

* The Draftsman *Videogram * Stock View * GSX * Canyon State Systems CompuShow (320×200 mode) ''Planet X3'', released by American YouTuber David "The 8-Bit Guy" Murray in 2019, was the first video game known to have Colorplus support (320×200×16). This support was added by Planet X3 enthusiast Benedikt Freisen. Freisen also produced drivers that add Colorplus support to Sierra's

adventure games An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based m ...

that ran on the SCI0 engine. ''FastDoom'', a port of ''Doom'' (1993 video game) developed by Victor Nieto, added support for ColorPlus 320×200×16 mode in 2021.

Hardware clones

Some third-party CGA and EGA clones, such as the

ATI Ati or ATI may refer to: * Ati people, a Negrito ethnic group in the Philippines **Ati language (Philippines), the language spoken by this people group ** Ati-Atihan festival, an annual celebration held in the Philippines *Ati language (China), a ...

''Graphics Solution'' and the

Paradise In religion, paradise is a place of exceptional happiness and delight. Paradisiacal notions are often laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical or eschatological or both, often compared to the miseries of human civilization: in para ...

''AutoSwitch EGA 480'', could emulate the extra modes (usually describing them simply as 'Plantronics mode'). The Thomson TO16 (a PC-XT compatible) and the Olivetti M19 supported Plantronics modes, along with CGA.

References

External links

"+COLORPLUS Shatters The Mold."
an original advertisement. *
USENET posting
describing the Plantronics Colorplus *Th

for the Paradise EGA chipset in the

Amstrad Amstrad was a British electronics company, founded in 1968 by Alan Sugar at the age of 21. The name is a contraction of Alan Michael Sugar Trading. It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in April 1980. During the late 1980s, Amstra ...

PC-1640 describes its Plantronics compatibility mode. {{Computer display standard Computer display standards Graphics cards Computer-related introductions in 1982

Output capabilities

Software support

Hardware clones

See also

References

External links